Matrescence? Or merely maternalism
Added to the Cambridge Dictionary in 2022, is raising social awareness and adoption of matrescence pressing the wrong buttons for women empowerment?
We have Paw Patrol playing, a four-monther whose dribbling and kicking suggestive of fangs clawing through, and I’m sticking to the practice of getting a weekly musing out.
While there are simpler ideas I’ve butted heads with this week, I can’t stop but have the “matrescence” conundrum roll around as I jump between jobs and thoughts. And no, for what it’s worth, that frantic head-rolling ain’t nothing new to my life or brain I’m afraid - well before children.
So here it goes, a week after I booked tickets to Australia’s first Matrescence gathering of scale, a friend sent me an article in The Cut on the author’s experience of becoming a mother, and importantly how minimal / utterly un-mystical this was.
My matrescence flip out. Still, so it seems.
In essence, they were more tired, they had kids toys around the house and no doubt a new knowledge of pumping devices otherwise no one will ever need to know, but by way of the maternal transformation and impact on their identity - they raised a pointed eyebrow - directed to the increasing popularisation of matrescence.
I asked a few friends, who had similar reflections. They too had conceived, birthed and been primary carers of their bubs while taking 9 to 12 month parental leave (maternity service). Feeding from their bod. Aka all hallmarks of matrescence in making.
With the defused lighting, hay barns, and mystification around birth and motherhood, I wasn’t all too surprised that they felt alien to the projected identity of “mother”, let alone, “maternal goddess”.
From what I super-impose and for the sake of this yarn - it’s sad to say, they hadn’t transformed in any mystical way. Their instincts, alas, just as they once were. They didn’t have any additional love for humanity and babies everywhere. Nor caring superpowers.
As one friend said, “When I looked in the mirror, I sometimes saw a more tired person, one covered in more food, but never a new one.”
A concept that had helped me to make a lot of sense of my life three years ago as I had walked Collins Street with a toddler about to run into traffic and unable to sit still in any cafe - I now appreciated that this explanatory power of matrescence, heaven forbid - may not be for everyone.
In fact, as the author softly alluded, its popularisation risked reinforcing maternalism and by extension gender-essentialism, something none of us need. Is it’s uptake furthering yet another cultural narrative that m/others can never live up to? And in fact, suggesting to overshadow the former identities a m/other once had.
I am more than my child. My identity continues whole. I am not “Mother”, I am me. As always, I jump too quickly to conclusions with an urgency to kick the discomfort of this tug and pull of wanting both - here’s where I now land:
Radical physiological and neurological change, is ripe.
Rivalled only by adolescence, people who conceive, are pregnant, birth, and breastfeed (take one or take all) undergo hella hormonal change. Turns out growing a child involves hormones at epic levels. Who would have thought? And indeed, this change continues not six weeks or six months post-partum, but up to ten years.
According to Monash Uni’s Dr Winnie Orchard, neuroscientists are able to identify whether a person has been pregnant with 95% accuracy. And cells from the foetus/baby found throughout a person’s body (including their brain) long after the babe is considered to have ‘left’ their body. Add in whatever other changes you’d like from microbiome to immunity, physiological and neurological transformation through this process is simply that, transformative.
Social transformation? I’m banking inevitable.
Whether you push back on the institution of intensive motherhood to embrace diverse expressions, or work tirelessly to meet it - good luck closing your eyes to the heightened pressures and social preconceptions that now impact how our systems and society perceive you (or more likely, don’t see you). Is that not an identity transformation in itself? The very act of now having to either comply or resist the social construct of the ‘good mother’ now projected on you. Dr Sophie Brock’s for more on this in Australia.
Maternalism is my Achilles' heel
I, like anyone in need of validation, love myself a bit of maternal reverence. More empathetic, more caring, more nurturing and creator of all beings - don’t mind me, I’m just a super-woman who is the beholder of all things care and bliss. Lucky I just birthed my way into this state. But as O’Reilly (2016) and Rich (1976) have made clear, this too reduces mothering to gender expectations, ‘natural’ and instinctive work. Nothing more, nothing less. And long story short, a dangerous game to play.
For why support a ‘good mother’, when this comes so instinctively? And more jaw crunching yet, why provide renumeration or share the load, when it simply comes so easily to them?
So while matrescence speaks to the very real and far reaching transformations m/others experience - emotionally and physically, I wonder does it have to prescribe the singular end point of what this transformation looks like?
Just like experiences of adolescence varies and our transition to adulthood diverse, can we not also create that space and diversity for matrescence. Does it have to result in one spot, one expression, and importantly, can it avoid reinforcing a singular end point of maternal bliss?
Yes, Paw Patrol is now long finished, and I’m not sure I’ve made much headway to be honest. But it’s where I’ve got to and hope someone can spoon feed me the answers soon enough.
Emma x